CES 2007: UBOT is a robot vacuum AND a robo-mop!

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Are robo-vacs old news? Not in Korea. The UBOT only went on sale recently, and is a combo device that sucks dust off your floor, sweeps AND wet mops it in a single pass. Now that’s cool.

And it’s got some fairly whizzy tech inside too. UBOT navigates around your house by reading invisible barcodes printed on your hard flooring. Okay, this means you do have to have a new floor laid down to make the most of it – if you don’t, it has sensors to handle just the vaccuuming part.

But Microrobot, the company behind it, has signed a deal with a Korean construction firm to imprint these barcodes in new houses and apartments, then provide UBOT free to new residents. Microrobot marketing manager Sangbin Park says that even without the mopping feature, it’s got several advantages over existing robo-vacs like Roomba.

“The cleaning capacity is much better, and it has a longer battery life,” he says. “If you vacuum and mop, UBOT lasts for over two hours, and if you just mop, it lasts for four hours. Some other robot vacuums last less than 90 minutes.”

If you’re not lucky enough to get one thrown in with your new Korean des-res, UBOT will cost you the equivalent of $1,000 to buy. It’s not available in Europe or the US yet, but Park says Microrobot is keen to change that in the near future.